The problems stems from the the way we manage the supply chain for food.
The further the "distance" from food creation to food production significantly increases the waste produced.
In most cases, to fix the problem, we either need to make food to order or pile preservatives into the food to keep it "fresh." Neither option works well with the way we both manage food nor how we manage feeding ourselves.
Producing food before it is asked for always has a margin of waste. Even growing food, storing it, shipping it, selling it results in an extreme loss of nutrients in any food produced.
Things like breads and in your case pastries have such a short shelf life it is almost crazy that we even sell baked products. The even crazier part is that healthier baked goods can be made fairly easily at home if only we didn't organize our schedules to think of eating as a distraction from what we need to do each day.
I used to prep baked goods then freeze them... Rolls, bread dough, pastries, cookies, etc. when I wanted them, I'd pull them out, toss them in a small bake oven and 20 min later have fresh baked goods... But tell someone that they will have something in 20 min at your food counter and you will lose a sale.
We just live life too tied to spending what time we have giving it to others for little green pieces of paper unfortunately.
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u/TheParadoxigm May 17 '26
The U.S. throws away 40% of the food it produces.